Jill Hall

Maharishi , Me, & Jill
Originally uploaded by Seeking Tao

One of my oldest friends passed on this week.
Jill and her husband, Tom, were TM teachers when I first came to Atlanta in 1971.
We shared those early, heady, heart filled days when all things seemed possible.
In time, years would pass and we would not see each other.
But, whenever we did, there was always that unspoken understanding of shared roots and love.

I find Jill to be entwined with what I hold most precious in my life.

She brought people to the transcendent.
She knew both my parents and they her.
I can’t say that of many people outside of family.
As part of his teacher training, Jill helped Pop give his first “living room lecture” on TM.
And she stood by his side as tears welled up in his eyes as he spoke of meditation.
Mom described the event to me, “Poor Jill didn’t know that Poppy cries when he is excited. Her eyes just got bigger and bigger as she watched him. She didn’t know what he would do.”
And I can still hear Pop’s voice, coming through the front door, “Hey, guess who I saw today, Tom Hall!”
Yes, it was always Tom and Jill. The two essentially were one.

I find that Jill takes with her a huge era of my life.
And so, this morning I dug out an old manuscript from those days some thirty years ago.
I was thinking of this William Dickey poem. I wanted to see exactly how it went:

Happiness

I sent you this bluebird of the name of Joe
with “Happiness” tattooed on his left bicep.
(For a bluebird, he was a damn good size.)
And all you can say is you think your cat has got him? …

So I am sending you this snail of the name of Fred
in a small tricolor sash, so the cat will know him.
He will scrawl out “Happiness” in his own slow way.
I won’t ever stop until the word gets to you.


Yes. That’s kind of how we've lived.
And Jill did it with such spirit.